Honor Cognitive Psychology notes

PERCEPTION AND ATTENTION

• Demo: Whodunnit, part 1

Questions about the relationship between perception and attention:

• Do we perceive everything we see, or only what we attend to?

• How detailed are our visual representations of the unattended world around us? 

• How, if at all, does attention impact what is perceived?

• Demo: Part 2

Inattentional Blindness

• People don’t notice things outside their “attentional focus”Neisser & Becklen (1975)

• Demo: Count the passes …

  Simons & Chabris (1999) – Gorilla’s in the Midst

• Monitor white team

• 42% noticed

• Monitor black team

• 83% noticed

Change Blindness

• Rensink et al. (1997)

• Abrupt changes capture attention

Posner (1980); Jonides (1981); Theeuwes (1994)

Interpretation

• Limitations of visual processing

• Our “internal model” of the visual world is incomplete – we have only sparse representations

• Mechanisms of attention dictate what we perceive

• And there is limited processing outside of attention

• New insights into the nature of attention…

Attention in Visual Search

• Treisman & Gellade (1984) – Demo (Visual Search ZAP)

• Quickly detect a target (e.g., blue circle) in a visual display

• Vary the set or display size (how many distractors)

• Vary the distractor features (e.g., orange objects, other blue objects)

• Vary the target presence (50% target present, 50%)

Feature Integration Theory

• Treisman (e.g., 1988, 1992)

• Rapid initial parallel process to identify individual object features 

• Attention-independent

• A slower, serial process is needed to form objects by bindingfeatures

• Attention-dependent

• Feature combination occurs through location-based attention

Decision Integration Hypothesis

• Importance of relationship between target and distractors –  Duncan & Humphreys (1989)

• Conjunction search is harder because target-distractor similarity is increased

• Decision Integration Hypothesis (Palmer et al., 2000)

• Processes involved in feature and conjunction searches are similar

• Search tasks involve decision making based on the discriminability between target and distractor stimuli

• Selective (Focused) attention

• A situation in which individuals try to attend to only one source of information while ignoring other stimuli

• Divided attention

• A situation in which two tasks are performed at the same time; also known as multitasking

• Overload!  

• Prevents a bottleneck

• Selective attention may limit the amount of information that proceeds through to higher levels of mental analysis/processing

• Identifies most relevant information

•Selective attention may allow us to determine which information is most important to encode and act upon

Focused Auditory Attention

• Cherry (1953)

• Scientist at a party

• Binaural listening

• Dichotic listening experiments

• “Shadowing” – Say what you hear in one ear

• Good at reporting physical characteristics of unattended channel

• could tell whether unattended channel was…

• Male vs. Female

• Speech vs. Buzzing

• Bad at reporting meaning-related information from unattended channel

• Couldn’t identify any specific word/phrase

• Moray(1959) - Word repeated 35 times still unnoticed

• Couldn’t tell whether unattended channel was…

• Forward vs. Backward

• English vs. German

• So, attention is …

• sensitive to physical properties 

• insensitive to meaning

Broadbent’s (1958) Filter Theory

• Inputs are filtered on the basis of physical characteristics

• Filtering prevents overloading of a limited capacity processing mechanism

• Attended inputs remain in the buffer after filter, and undergo later [semantic] processing

Problems for Broadbent’s Theory

• Sometimes meaning gets through

• Cocktail party “effect” (Moray, 1959; Conway et al., 2001)

• Gray & Wedderburn (1960)

• In Triesman’s attenuation theory

• Unattended information is not completely filtered, but is “attenuated” by the leaky filter

• Pertinence Theory (Deutch & Deutch,1963; Norman,1968)

• Everything is fully analyzed for meaning

• “Pertinence” determines later selection – most relevant stimulus is selected to determine memory encoding and response selection

Overt vs. Covert Attention

• is “attending” to something just the same thing as “looking” at it?

• Covert Attention -  Attentional shifts to a spatial location in the absence of an eye movement to that location (Posner,1980)

• Covert Attention -  Attentional shifts to a spatial location in the absence of an eye movement (Posner,1980)

Top-down vs. Bottom-up Attention Control

With central cue, this is a test of “Endogenous” (Top-down) attention: Attention must be directed through internal control (intention)

With peripheral cue, this is a test of “Exogenous” (bottom-up) attention: Attention is grabbed by a salient external stimulus

Posner’s Attentional Systems

Endogenous System

• Goal-driven: Controlled by the individual’s voluntary intentions and expectations

• Involved when central cues are presented

Exogenous System

• Stimulus-driven: Automatic (and involuntary) shifts of (captures) attention

• Involved when peripheral cues are presented

• Stimuli that are salient or that differ from other stimuli are most likely to be attended (grab attention)

• Spatial Cuing Paradigm

  • Posner’s (1980) results generally support attentional “spotlight” metaphor

  • Questions

  • Can it be “zoomed” in and out?

  • What is its shape?

  • Is there only one spotlight?

  • What does it highlight, locations or objects?

  • Distant flankers don’t have an effect because they can be excluded from the spotlight of attention

  But, there seems to be a limit to how narrow it can be, because it can’t be made to block out nearby flankers

• wh and Pashler (2000)

• Shaded areas indicate the cued locations

• The “near” and “far” locations are not cued

• Probability of target detection at valid (left or right) and invalid (near or far) locations 

• Location-based attention – Target was detected more quickly on valid  trials

• Object-based attention – Target was detected relatively more quickly on invalid trials where the object (white rectangle) contained the target

Module 2

DIVIDED ATTENTION & CONTROL

Limits to attention

• The “attentional blink”

Selective Attention Revisited

• Account for the attentional blink?

• Early or late selection?  Neither?

• Problem: we miss information even in the attended stream!

• Alternative account?

Attention: A selector or a resource?

• Selective (Focused) attention

• A situation in which individuals try to attend to only one source of information while ignoring other stimuli

• Divided attention

• A situation in which two tasks are performed at the same time; also known as multitasking

Divided Attention

When does it happen?

• Need to pay attention to two (or more) things at the same time

• Perform two (or more) tasks simultaneously

• Ability to divide attention depends on 3 major factors

• Task difficulty

• Sullivan (1976):  Shadowing redundant messages permits more non-shadowed message detection

• Task similarity

• Treisman and Davies (1973): Sense modality, McLeod (1977): Response modality

• Task Practice

• Spelke, Hirst, and Neisser (1976): Practiced dictation-takers can simultaneously read for comprehension

Dual-task demo

• Task 1: producing random numbers

• Task 2: copy what I say

…OK done seperately…

…How about together?

Driving while on the phone

• Strayer & Johnston (2001)

• Hands-free phones provide no additional safety advantage

• Run more red lights, take longer to brake – like DUI

Psychological Refractory Period Task

•A VERY simplified dual-tasking procedure

• Psychological Refractory Period - PRP

SOA = stimulus onset asynchrony

PRP

• Task 1 – Color naming

  Red, Green, or Blue

• Task 2 - Shape

  Circle (raise right hand) or Square (raise left hand)

PRP Data

• Slower response to second stimulus with short SOA

Why is there a bottleneck?

Capacity theory (Kahneman, 1973)

Attention

Capacity may vary with “state” (stress, tiredness, etc.)

Capacity theory of Attention (Kahneman, 1973)

Attention is a limited

“Mental Resource”

Devote to one task …

or divide between tasks

Mental effort (task difficulty) determines capacity used

Interference when there is insufficient capacity

Practice reduces capacity needed

Explanation for AB

•The “attentional blink”

Capacity Theory of Attention

• Assumes a single, undifferentiated, pool of attention

• Explains a number of attentional phenomena

• Accounts for task difficulty findings in dual task interference

• Accounts for task practice findings in dual task interference

• What about task similarity?

Task Similarity effect

• Tasks that require similar processing are harder to“put together” (e.g., Brooks, 1968)

Stimulus Domain

“John ran to the store to buy some oranges”

Response mode

Say “yes” or “no”

•It was a cold day in the park, and Anthony wished he had worn a warmer coat.

Task Similarity Effects

• Multiple capacities:

• auditory vs. visual perceptual modalities

• perceptual vs. cognitive resources

• vocal vs. manual response modalities

Wickens (1984) Multiple-Resource Theory

Multiple capacities view is not “parsimonious”

Multiple capacities view may not be a ”true” scientific theory

Philosophy of science (e.g., Popper, Kuhn) argues that a scientific theory must be both:

Testable

Falsifiable

Lavie’s Attentional Load Theory

• Everyone has limited attentional capacity

• Susceptibility to distraction is greatest when:

• The task involves low perceptual load, because there are attentional resources to spare 

• There is a high cognitive load due to demands on executive (“cognitive control”) functioning

Response competition task: 

  Is there an “X” or an “N” in the letter circle?

We are less distractable when our primary task has high perceptual load

Same task: Is there an “X” or an “N” in the letter circle?

But this time, you have to hold some information in memory

Cognitive load has the opposite effect from perceptual load…why?

Executive Function

• Aka Cognitive control – abilities that allow us to flexibly guide behavior in accord with our internally represented goals and surrounding context

  … in order to execute task-appropriate and goal-driven behavior 

• Emphasized when “top-down” processing is needed to overcome:

• distracting sources of information

• prepotent (default, expected) response tendencies (like reflexive responses)

• This flexibility allows us to adapt to changes in external context, as well as internal motivations

• Supports dual-task coordination and resolves response conflict (PRP)

The Stroop task

As fast as you can without making any mistakes, say the font color of each word, going across each row, until you get to the end.

Prefrontal involvement in cognitive control

• Larger PFC in species “capable” of cognitive control 

• Proportion of prefrontal cortical territory is greatest in humans

• Roughly 1/3 in humans

• Damage to PFC leads to “dysexecutive” syndrome

In place of the diligent, dependable worker stood a foulmouthed and ill-mannered liar given to extravagant schemes that were never followed through. "Gage," said his friends, "was no longer Gage.”

Prefrontal involvement in cognitive control

• PFC clearly implicated in cognitive control

• Mechanisms by which PFC produces control and flexibility remain at issue

The “homunculus problem” – 

are we just proposing a little person in our heads who makes decisions for us? That’s just a repetition of the original problem we were trying to explain (How does the little person decide? Is their a littler person inside his/her head …?)

• Guided activation theory (Miller & Cohen, 2001)

• Prefrontal cortex (PFC) controls behavior by actively maintaining representations that bias the flow of information in posterior (further back) cortical pathways responsible for task execution. 

• Goals are implemented as representations maintained in PFC

• Goals (or tasks) compete for representation in the PFC

• Prefrontal cortex (PFC) controls behavior by actively maintaining representations that bias the flow of information in posterior (further back) cortical pathways responsible for task execution. 

• Goals are implemented as representations maintained in PFC

• Goals (or tasks) compete for representation in the PFC

• Representations are active until a task is completed/irrelevant

• PFC representations “guide” activation in the cortical areas responsible for executing task-relevant behavior

Cognitive Control

• Read the word (“Red”)

• Prepotent response

• Automatic

• Say the color its written in (“Blue”)

• Novel response

• Controlled

• Hold papers together

• Prepotent response

• Automatic

• Pick open a locked briefcase 

• Novel response

Controlled

• Behavior is automatic in the absence of PFC control

Same outcome under PFC control representing a goal for compatible behavior

Controlled and flexible, behavior is only possible only under PFC control

especially when there are competing response demands or sources of distraction

A Fronto-Parietal Control Network

• It’s become clear that cognitive control engages more than just the prefrontal cortex…and that there is a “Cognitive Control Network” in the brain

Automatic vs. Controlled Processes

• Controlled Processes

• intentional

• conscious

• effortful

• serial

• Depend on attention

• Automatic Processes

• unintentional

• unconscious

• effortless

• parallel

• Little demand on attention

How does something that starts out as controlled (something that we’re novices at) become automatic?

Controlled vs. Automatic Processing

• Schneider & Shiffrin (1977)

Manipulations:

•  # of items in “memory set” (1, 2, or 4)

•  # of items in each frame (1,2,4)

 “consistent mapping” or “varied mapping

• Practice effects (skill)

  • Schneider & Shiffrin (1977) - detecting consistently mapped ‘targets’ in rapidly presented frames

  • Automated with practice

  •  Releases cognitive resources

  •  Prediction for neuroimaging …

  • Practice in “consistent” tasks leads to reduced activity

  • •Same regions regardless of task type!

  Single capacity

   or 

  Multiple capacities?

  PRP Experiments

  •Simplified dual-task method

  •Psychological Refractory Period

• Perceptual stage bottleneck?

• Pashler & Johnston (1989)

MEMORY 1

Introduction to memory

•Do you have a good memory?

•How much information can you keep in memory (how many separate memories)?  Is there a limit?

•How long can a memory last?  Is there a limit?

•What is the duration of “short-term” memory?

•Think of a specific memory you have. How is the information about this memory represented (i.e. what is its form in your mind)?

•

•What are 3 different things you use your memory for?

What is memory for?

Good memory? (yes or no)

Learning facts

Studying for tests

Remembering phone numbers

Keeping track

What do I have to do today?

Where did I park my car?

What else????

Memory: Architecture and Processes

•Architecture

•The way in which the memory system is organized

•Processes

•The activities occurring within the memory system 

The architecture of memory

•Atkinson & Shiffrin’s (1968) “Modal” Model

•aka The Standard Model

Visual sensory memory

•Why don’t movies just look like a series of still frames?

•How long does a lightning strike last

•Iconic memory (Neisser) 

•Sperling (1960) – A series of experiments to explore VSM

•Full (whole) and partial report of visual array

On average, subjects report 4.5 of the 12 items (~37%)

•What is the capacity of VSM?

•Partial report results, immediate cue

•On average, subjects report 3.3 out of 4 (~75%) letters

•Which means … they must have had access in sensory memory to almost all of the items (3.3 x 3 = 10 of 12 items)

VSM has a LARGE capacity

•But it doesn’t last for very long…

•What is the duration of VSM?

•Partial report results, variable delay

Properties of visual sensory memory

Sperling (1960)

CAPACITY of VSM – LARGE (most of the visual array)

DURATION of VSM – SHORT!

Decays within about 0.5s

What causes forgetting?

Information in VSM is lost due to overwriting

Effect of light flash

After stimulus

What is the “code” of VSM?

Auditory sensory memory

Echoic memory

“Playback” facility

Treisman (1964)

Duration of information in the store ~2-4s

Echoic memory - Duration ~2-4s

•Is it a useful concept?

•Ecologically valid? (Haber, 1983)

Short-Term and Long-Term Memory

Evidence for Independence: A Double-Dissociation

•LTM Amnesics

–Damage to the medial temporal lobe

–Impaired long-term memory

–Intact short-term memory

•Patient K.F. and others

–Damage to the parietal and temporal lobes

– Intact long-term memory

– Impaired short-term memory for letters, words, and digits

•Demo

•Plot p(recall) for each position in the list

The many faces of STM

•Primary memory

•Elementary memory

•Immediate memory

•Short-term memory

•Short-term store

•Supervisory attentional system

•Working memory

Historically different connotations

“Where the immediate present moment is held in consciousness” James (1890)

Short-term Memory in the Modal Model 

•Holds information that can be accessed immediately and effortlessly

•Information from LTM must be brought into the short-term store so that it can be acted upon

•Decay of activation causes information to leave the short-term store

•Decay can be prevented by rehearsal

Rehearsal causes encoding into LTM

•A limited capacity bottleneck - The “magical number 7 plus or minus 2” (Miller, 1956)

•Overcoming the bottleneck?

•A limited capacity bottleneck - The “magical number 7 plus or minus 2” (Miller, 1956)

•Overcoming the bottleneck?

• “chunks” of information

•Recoding – enriching representation, regrouping

•Takes time

•Relies on experience

•Cowan (2000): 4+/-1 when effects of rehearsal and LTM are removed.

STM: Duration and decay

Does forgetting in STM occur due to the passage of time?

Remembering “trigrams” – e.g. MGT, with filler task

Peterson & Peterson 1959; Brown 1958

STM drops off quickly over the retention interval

Lasts only ~10s

Looks like decay

•Brown-Peterson Task - maybe the filler task directly interferes with the to-be-remembered items…

•Retroactive interference

•We can test it …  Waugh & Norman (1965)

•Probe digit task

  2 7 6 4 9 8 2 1 4 5 7 8 2 9 3 5  --- 6 (“four”)

•Manipulate (IV’s)

•Rate of item presentation - 1/second or 4/second

•Serial position of probe

When you are shown a to-be-remembered item, in what form is it then represented in your mind (in STM)?

As a visual word (the way it was presented)? 

As an image? 

As sounds (phonologically)?       

By meaning? 

Prediction: subjects should confuse items that overlap in representation

(DEMO)

Phonological Similarity Effect

Finding: Items that share sounds are more easily confused in STM

Interpretation: Suggests that STM

(at least for verbal information) must use a sound-based code

Short term memory is …

• NOT a passive store -  “Workspace” of the mind

• NOT a unitary store

•Evidence of separate “slave” systems (e.g. phonological loop vs. visuospatial sketchpad

•Neuropsychological Evidence

•Warrington & Shallice (1969) – Selective deficit with verbal information

•Vallar and Baddeley (1984) – Selective deficit with spatial information

•Dual-task method (interference)

•Random number generation – disrupts central executive

•Articulatory suppression – disrupts phonological loop

•Spatial tapping – disrupts visuospatial sketchpad

The central executive – WM and Attention

•Baddeley (1996, p. 6) admitted

•“our initial specification of the central executive was so vague as to serve as little more than a ragbag into which could be stuffed all the complex strategy selection, planning, and retrieval checking that clearly goes on when subjects perform even the apparently simple digit-span task.”

•Central executive as an attentional system

•Prefrontal Cortex = Central executive?

Working memory as Controlled Attention

•Working memory = Controlled attention

(Engle et al., 1999; Cowan, 1995; Schneider & Chein, 2003)

•Measured best with tasks that:

•Discourage domain-specific rehearsal

•Discourage domain-specific rehearsal

•Involve attentional distraction or secondary tasks

Unitary-Store Models

•No separate short-term and long-term stores?

•Crowder (1982) “The demise of STM “ – argued that:

•no “dedicated” short-term storage mechanism

•same processes govern memory for the short- and long-term

•STM is just the activated portion of LTM

•How to explain neuropsychological double-dissociation between STM and LTM?

•Relational memory deficit (Jonides et al., 2008) – MTL (hippocampal damage) patients struggle to form novel relations (associations) between items and their context

Life without LTM

•Amnesia

•Many different causes ….

•Traumatic brain injury, Stroke, Disease, Shock therapy (ECT), Psychological trauma, Hypnosis

Amnesia

Different types of amnesia - 

Anterograde – inability to form or retain new memories following the trauma

Retrograde – loss of memory for events/facts learned prior to the trauma

Hippocampus & Amnesia

•Severity of retrograde amnesia:

•Partial lesions to hippocampus -> 1-2 years.

•Extensive lesions to hippocampus  -> 15-25 yrs.

•Lesions to hippocampus and surround -> 40-50 yrs.

Patient H.M. - Henry Gustav Molaison

•Reported by Scoville & Milner (1957)

  Scoville attempted surgeries for psychosis but it didn’t work, so tried it for epilepsy on about 30 patients

•Bilateral medial temporal lobe lesion

•STM good

•7+/-2, normal digit span

•Forgetting curve for STM normal

•No dementia

•IQ normal and unchanged (IQ = 118)

•This young man had no obvious memory disturbance before his operations, having, for example, passed his high school examinations without difficulty…

•The patient was drowsy for the first few post-operative days but then, as he became more alert, a severe memory impairment was apparent.  He could no longer recognize the hospital staff … he did not remember and could not relearn the way to the bathroom, and he seemed to retain nothing of the day-to-day happenings in the hospital. 

•Ten months after the operation the family moved to a new house which was situated only a few blocks away from the old one, on the same street.  When examined, nearly a year later, HM had not learned the new address, nor could he be trusted to find his own way home because he would go to the old house.  Six years ago the family moved again, and HM is still unsure of his present address, although he seems to know that he has moved.

•

  Milner, 1966

•

H.M.: Anterograde vs. Retrograde

•Selective and severe global anterograde amnesia

•Showed word or face, asked later, wouldn’t remember

•Read same newspaper repeatedly

•Couldn’t remember his own physician

•Mild retrograde amnesia

•Loss of memories from 2-3 years before surgery

•Childhood memories and general knowledge intact

•Implicit learning in H.M.

•Rotary motor pursuit

•Mirror tracing

•Tower of Hanoi

Hippocampus & Amnesia

•Theories of hippocampal contribution to memory

•Storage site for memory

•Difficult to reconcile with time-dependent deficits

•Librarian for memories - knows where memories are stored and recalls them.

•Does not explain selective deficit for explicit memories.

•Consolidates memories - holds memories over the short term and recodes memories in more permanent form for storage elsewhere in the brain

•Labeller that tags memories according to their context (location, time, emotions, social settings, etc).

•Episodic memory is especially context-dependent.

Diseases affecting memory

•Korsakoff’s

•Alcohol-induced diencephalic (e.g. thalamus) damage.

•Anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia.

•Confabulation (inventing stories rather than admit loss)

•Parkinson’s

•Impaired implicit learning

•Alzheimer’s

Testing memory

•Testing by recall (demo revisted)

•Free recall

•“Write down as many items from the list as you can”

•Cued recall

•“Write down items from the list that were animals”

•Testing by recognition

•Recognition

•“Was pig on the list?”

•“Was milk on the list?”

•“Was gold on the list?”

•Confidence

•Remember: specific memory

•Know: feeling of familiarity

Implicit tests

•No specific or explicit memory requirement

•Word completion

•“Write down a word beginning with FL….”

•“Complete this word: M _ S ”

•RT measures:

•Lexical decision

•Naming

Faster for items from the memory list

Memory: Architecture and Processes

•Architecture

•The way in which the memory system is organized

•Processes

•The activities occurring within the memory system 

Questions

•How does encoding affect memory?

•Elaborative encoding

•Depth of processing

•How does retrieval affect memory?

•Encoding specificity, Context-dependence

•Consequences of retrieval

Elaborative Encoding & Rehearsal

•Mental processing during learning is as important as the “final resting place” (e.g. STM, LTM)

•Two kinds of rehearsal (Craik & Lockhart)

•Maintenance rehearsal (Type 1)

•Elaborative rehearsal (Type 2)

•- Meaning, Distinctiveness

•- Linked to prior knowledge

•Rehearsal does not always improve memory

•Deeper levels of analysis produce more elaborate, longer-lasting and stronger memory

traces than shallow analyses

Depth of Processing Theory (Craik & Lockhart)

•Level, or “Depth”, of processing determines durability in memory (Craik & Lockhart, 1972)

Is the word in capital letters?

Does the word rhyme with train?

Is the word an animal?

Does the word fit in the sentence

“He saw a ______ in the street”?

Depth of Processing - Evidence

•Level, or “Depth” of processing determines durability in memory (Craik & Lockhart, 1972)

Good intentions don’t matter

•Depth vs. intention to learn (Hyde & Jenkins, 1973)

Neither does motivation (on its own)

•Motivated (paid) vs. non-motivated learning

The self-reference effect

•The importance of “self” in memory

•Relating information to your own experiences is an especially “deep” form of encoding

•Classroom demos

•Relate concepts to your existing knowledge

•Consider your intuitions (right or wrong)

Levels-of-processing Theory: Distinctiveness

•Von Restorff Effect (Isolation Effect) – Things with more distinctive encoding are easier to remember (1930’s)

•Eysenck (1979)

•Unique memory traces are easier to retrieve than those resembling others

•Pronouncing words in a unique way leads to better recognition memory (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1980)

Levels of Processing: Evaluated

•Deeper encoding improves memory

•Criticisms of depth of processing theory (Baddeley, 1975)

•How is “depth” defined – circular reasoning

•Depth isn’t the only important thing

Glenberg et al., 1977

•Memory for “distractors” in Brown-Peterson

•Surprise “recognition” test

Morris, Bransford, and Franks (1977):

Transfer-Appropriate Processing Theory 

Standard Recognition Test vs. Rhyming Test (rhymes with study word)

Hair

Date

Clay

Robin

  Subsequent retention depends on the relevance of information to the memory test.

Sleep and Encoding/Consolidation

•REM sleep leads to improved memory!

Jenkins & Dallenbach (1924)

•Why does sleep help

•Slows decay process

•Avoids interference

•Proactive or retroactive?

•Important for memory consolidation

•Why do we sleep? 

Encoding and Practice

•Massed versus distributed practice

•The “spacing effect” (e.g. Bahrick & Hall, 1991)

•Why –

•“Desirable” difficulties? (avoids overconfidence)

•Encoding variability

•Habituation

Directed Forgetting

Can attention control determine the later fate of memories?

Think/No-think Paradigm

Study:

Ordeal-Roach

Tree-Knob

Interim Test: (Think/No-think)

Ordeal –  ________

Final Test:

Ordeal-_______

Tree-_______

Repression and Recovered Memories

Can “Forgetting” occur because unwanted memories are actively suppressed?

 Dees-Roediger-McDermott Paradigm

Remembering “milk” when it wasn’t there

Encoding specificity

Memory is better when the conditions of test (retrieval) reinstate those present during study (encoding)

•Transfer appropriate processing

•Encoding specificity

•Context-dependency

•State-dependency

•Mental activities during study

•The conditions where/when you study

•Context of study

•Mood during study

•Example - reciting months of the year